


I need a favor

by Lunah_Peixvey



Category: Original Work
Genre: Big book o' demons, Deals With The Devil, Devil is a nerd, Gen, Multi, Old Irish, Original Female Characters - Freeform, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Soul Selling, Tumblr Prompt, Witches, everybody is so sarcastic to each other, magic items, the Devil - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 00:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6730183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunah_Peixvey/pseuds/Lunah_Peixvey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was an average day, sun was shining, clear blue sky. Emmeline  St. John was living the good life. Successful book series, a movie adaptation, big fan base, she had it all. She had everything save for one thing, her soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I need a favor

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based off of the prompt. "One day you sold your soul to the devil. Today he gives it back with the words, "I need a favor."

It was an average day, sun was shining, clear blue sky. Emmeline St. John was living the good life. Successful book series, a movie adaptation, big fan base, she had it all. She had everything save for one thing, her soul.  
  
Emme sold her soul for fame five years ago to the Devil. She was down on her luck and broke, so she decided to take desperate measures. Ainsley ‘O Cuilinn, one her best friends from college, gave her a book for her 23rd birthday. Ainsley was always interested in the dark side, saying that she was a descendant of Méabh Arianrhod Ó Ceithearnaigh, a famous witch from Ireland. The book in question was leather bound, with gold inlaid in strange, foreign patterns across the front, back, and spine. When Emmeline flipped to the first page, she was confused because she didn’t know the language it was written in and she didn’t want to seem ungrateful. When she got to the actual book chapters, she let out a sigh of relief. In the margins were neat translations in her friend's handwriting.  
  
The book collected dust until the absolute worst part in Emmeline’s life came. She had a minimum wage job, bug-infested hotel room, barely enough money to keep herself afloat. Deciding to sell some belongings to make some extra money, she scavenged her small flat for chachkies that could be sold to collectors. She found the book just above an old Italian cooking book her mother gave her. Not knowing what else to do, and using the age old excuse of boredom, she searched for the chapter entitled “Déileálann leis an Diabhal (Deals With The Devil)”. Biggest problem with the ritual is all of the ingredients. “Where the heck am I supposed to find goats blood. Is that even a thing that I can get?” Emme rubbed the bridge of her nose, like she always did when she got frustrated. “No big deal. I just need goat's blood, black wax candles, the four elements, and an abandoned place to do this.” She murmured to herself.  
  
The black wax candles weren’t as hard to find as she thought they’d be, the goat’s blood was another matter. She enlisted the help of Ainsley to buy the candles, and find a way to humanely get goat blood.  
  
“I don’t know why you can’t just kill a goat yourself, the tempter does like his animal sacrifices.” She offered, leaning against a doorframe. “Why don’t you just buy a goat from a butcher, ya know, pre-butchered, and use that?”  
  
“Because I’m a nice person. I’m a vegetarian, I cried for a week when I killed a pet fish I got at a state fair.” Emmeline runs a hand through her ratty, caramel colored hair, ignoring the tangles that caught her hand.  
  
“Look, leave the goat’s blood to me. Go set up in the abandoned workshop just outside city limits. You got the four elements right?”  
  
Emmeline smiles, and hold up four brass bowls, “Got charcoal to burn, lake water, some graveyard dirt, and some water to make into steam.”  
  
“Uh, steam?”  
  
“Yeah, for the element of air. Isn’t that the fourth element, unless I totally didn’t pay attention to my mythology textbook.” Emmeline snorts.  
  
“The fourth element for this one, is blood. Human blood. Your’s more specifically.”  
  
“My b-blood?” Emme goes white.  
  
“Yes, just get a knife or something to make a cut on your hand, you don’t need to drain your entire body, jeez.” Ainsley cocked her eyebrow, “Although, he does like sacrifices.” She gave her friend a sly smile.  
  
“Nope, not draining that much blood over this. I’ll just use this letter opener.”  
  
“Good enough, let’s go.” Ainsley exits the building and hails a taxi to take her to a butcher shop.  
  
“I swear to whoever’s above that if she brings a live goat to the building, she’ll be the sacrifice.” Emmeline carefully put all the ingredients in her bag and went to the bus stop. She rode in silence all the way to the furthest the bus system goes, clenching and unclenching her hands in her lap the entire way. She heads to the abandoned building and shuddered as she got caught in a spider web. She checked and double checked her ingredients, waiting always made her anxious. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of waiting, Ainsley entered the building with a bag of blood.  
  
“How’d you get that? Or do I not want to know.” Emmeline drawls as she flips her bangs out of her face.  
  
“Hey, I’m not the only practicer of black magick around these parts.” She walks close and hands Emme a paintbrush. “Use this, I don’t think you’d be the kind of person to get blood on your hands.”  
  
“I owe you for this Ley-Ley,” Emmeline hugs her friend, then pulls back. “Can you open the bag? I’m new to all this.” She gestures vaguely all around.  
  
“What would you do without me?” Humor danced throughout Ainsley’s slate gray eyes. She opens the bag and Emmeline dips a paintbrush into it.  
  
“Crash and burn.” Emmeline walked to the middle of the room and starts to make a circle with the bloody paintbrush. Going back and forth between the blood bag and the circle several times, she finally finished the circle. “Okay, the next thing to do is to put the four brass bowls on corners between the points.”  
  
Taking the four bowls, she puts the graveyard dirt in one, charcoal in another, the lake water in the third, and she slits her hand with the letter opener above the fourth. Hissing in pain, Emmeline goes back to Ainsley for bandages. Taking a lit match, she lights the charcoal on fire.  
  
“Now, for the five black candles on the points themselves.” Emmeline puts the black candles on the points and lights them, too.  
  
“You still set on doing this. No backing out once you’ve summoned him. You’ll give up your soul, and he could very possibly do anything with it. In ten years, he could pull you down to hell. Devil summoning is very complicated, and even I don’t know all of the outcomes of this and I’ve been studying this for almost ten years.” Her eyes flickered between Emmeline and the pentagram. Twisting her jam colored hair around one finger she continued, “Just make sure to have all loose ends tied up. The Devil is tricky, and I don’t want you getting yourself roped into a bad deal.”  
  
Emmeline pats her friend on her shoulder, “I’ll be fine, Ley. I need a way out of this life. I barely have enough money to feed myself. Not exactly easy to make cash off of a psych degree.”  
  
“I told about that when you were deciding your major, but did you listen? No, you didn’t.” Ainsley rolled her eyes.  
  
“Besides, now I can have the life I’ve always wanted. I’ll ask for a best-selling idea for a book series. You know I’ve always wanted to be a writer.”  
  
“Then why did you take psyche?” Ainsley groans.  
  
“Because I thought understanding the mind would make it easier to use tricks to compel people to buy my books.” Emmeline smiles like it was obvious.  
  
“You sure you have a soul to sell?” Ainsley jokes.  
  
“Don’t be rude. Now, let’s get this show on the road.” Emmeline goes to the circle and starts to chant  
  
“Úsáid mé an fhuil gabhar chun ceangal tú. Úsáid mé na ceithre heilimintí sin a iallach a chur ort. Úsáid mé na coinnle céir dubh a chur ina luí leat. Úsáid mé an pentagram mé féin a choinneáil slán. Úsáid mé an incantation a dhéanamh déileáil. Nocht féin!”  
  
A dark puff of smoke circled from the center of the pentagram. It grew thicker and thicker, staying within the confines of the circles, going up and up. “⸮Em nommus ot serad ohw”  
  
“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak mirror-language.” Emmeline drawls, trying to hide her fear of what might be hiding in the smoke. Would it be a towering, red-skinned, horned demon? Would it look like a male model with horns and a spiked tail? Would it stay within the disguise of the smoke?  
  
“Wow, you are the first person to not immediately kneel and beg for whatever they want.” The voice was back, less booming this time, and actually speaking in plain English.  
  
In the background, hiding behind a decrepit wall, Ainsley facepalmed and whispered, “What is she doing?”  
  
Back to the pentagram, Emmeline was staring into the smoke, trying to make out a form, “Another thing, will you stop hiding in the mist? I thought you were supposed be all bright light and hellfire.”  
  
“Where did you figure that out? One time I light myself on fire during a party for fun and I’m branded for life.” With this remark, the smoke cleared away, leaving a human standing in the circle with his arms crossed.  
  
Emmeline put her hand up to cover her mouth, “Oh, no. He’s hot.” She started thanking everything and anything she could think of that she said it in Greek. “Thanks, Grandma for forcing me to learn Greek in High School.”  
  
“I’m sorry what was that?” He wrinkled his nose, “So, what’s driven you to sell your soul? Wealth? Fame? Love? Lust?” He wriggled his eyebrows while saying the last one.  
  
“Ew, no! The second one, fame. I’ll give you my soul if you give me a best-selling idea for a book series, with the addition of having no writers block, and not dying before the book series is published.”  
  
“Wow, you really thought this all out, didn’t you?” The Devil rolled his eyes. His orange, slit-pupiled eyes looked her up and down. Suddenly feeling self-conscious, Emmeline tugged down her light-blue college hoodie. “Well, I guess since you got all dressed up to see me, I suppose I could make a deal with you.”  
  
Emmeline looks down at the faded hoodie and the ripped jeans she was wearing. Giving him a saccharine smile, “Oh thank you, O’ evil one.”  
  
Still behind the wall, Ainsley groaned and started to quietly bang her head into the wall. “Why did I let the self-proclaimed ‘Snarkmaster General’ talk head-to-head with the Devil himself? What was I thinking?!”  
  
“So kind of you to acknowledge my title, mortal.” He gives her a saccharine smile of his own. “So, a deal then?” He extended his right hand, glowing with violet flames.  
  
“Under the circumstance that you tell me when you’ll use my soul, how long I have, and what you plan to do with it.” Emmeline rushed through before shaking the Devil’s hand.  
  
“You’re the sixth person to do that to me!” Growling slightly, he runs his hand, still flaming, through his hair. “Alright. Here’s my end of the deal: I’ll use your soul whenever I damn well please to, you’ll have at least enough to get a movie deal and reap the spoils from it, and I’m going to use your soul for blackmail later in life. Got it?”  
  
“Define blackmail.” Emmeline said cautiously.  
  
“Blackmail: the action, treated as a criminal offense, of demanding money from a person in return for not revealing compromising or injurious information about that person.” He gave a humorless smile.   
  
“Don’t get sassy, I can leave you in this pentagram.” She points to the circle.  
  
“Oh, no. This pentagram won’t hold me for long.” He points to the already slightly fading circle. “So unless you want me to rend your flesh from your bones, I suggest we make this quick.” He smiles.  
  
Emmeline goes white, “O-okay. So, I agree to the terms set by the both of us. By the power of this ritual, I relinquish my soul to you.” She shakes his hand, off-set by his tight grip. Their joined hands are engulfed by violet flames.  
  
Ainsley slides down the wall with a quiet groan as she hears the familiar sound of the Devil leaving the pentagram. It was a quiet whooshing sound as all of the candles were extinguished. She came out from the wall she was hiding behind. “What was that!” She storms up to her friend and shakes her. “You don’t mock the Devil himself! What were you thinking?”  
  
“I was thinking that he’s a smug asshat that needs to be brought down a peg or two.”  
  
Ainsley rubs the bridge of her nose, “Emmie, Em. I love ya, you know that, but you can sometimes be a huge dumbass.”  
  
“I thought I handled it well!” She crosses her arms.  
  
“Emmeline St. John, it is not nice to lie to your friends.” Ainsley sighs, and grabs her friend’s arm, “Come on, let’s get out of this abandoned building.”  
  
She stumbled as she allowed herself to get tugged out of the building. Blinking in the sunlight, she turns to her, “Ains, Ains I’m good.” She unattached her friends arm, “I can walk on my own.”  
  
The entire exchange lead her on the path to stardom. The book took off and everything the Devil promised came true. Except, he never came to collect. Never came, that is, until the day he showed up at her door, suit all rumpled and his tie undone, looked her straight in the eye and said, “I need a favor.”


End file.
